


you wear your best apology

by abvj



Category: Younger (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 05:16:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15308292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abvj/pseuds/abvj
Summary: The anger wears him out.Charles in the aftermath. Set immediately after 5x04.





	you wear your best apology

**Author's Note:**

> New fandom and my skills are rusty at best. Con-crit is appreciated as well as more Liza/Charles fic. Preferably with makeouts.

0

On a deserted balcony, after everything, this happens: 

She finds him, alone, dying cigarette between his fingers. He is caught but doesn't try to hide it. Charles is who he is, always has been - especially with her. 

Inside, the party breathes elegance and expensive taste. Cristal and caviar are being passed around on gold-rimmed trays. His bowtie is too tight, practically suffocating, and Liza wears an emerald dress that makes his throat go dry. 

"I am sorry," she says in lieu of a hello. 

Thirty stories below them New York looks small and insignificant. Charles laughs. It isn't kind. He stubs out his cigarette in a tray off to the side and reaches to tug a little at the fabric around his neck, loosening it. He doesn't look at her. He actively looks anywhere _but_ at her. 

"I truly wish it were that simple," he replies. 

Liza's mouth twists into something both sad and wistful. From just inside the doors something calls her name, Kelsey probably, and when he finally looks her in the eye he remembers, too easily, what it was like to kiss her. How badly he still wants to kiss her. He shoves his hands into his pockets just to keep himself from reaching for her. Rocks back on his heels a little. Stands his ground. 

"I should go," she says with a sigh. 

His nod is swift and severe. "Yes. You absolutely should." 

Charles turns his back to her then just so he doesn't have to watch her walk away. 

 

 

 

1

"You're in love with her." 

It is Pauline who says it first. 

They are in the corner of a bar somewhere east of downtown. One carefully chosen as neutral territory, a place unlikely to be frequented by people who knew them. Her glass of chardonnay sits untouched between them as the radio hums along at a whisper from behind the bar. He lifts his tumbler to his mouth, the glass heavy in his hand. Pauses. Tries to design an appropriate, diplomatic answer. 

He finishes his whiskey in a single swallow. It burns on the way down, cheaper than he is used to, but he still enjoys the way the heat settles in his belly and spreads to his fingertips. It should provide him with a certain amount of courage, but Charles still doesn't look her in the eye. Idly, his fingers trace the rim of his now empty glass and he thinks of twenty years before. Of promises made and long-since broken. _For better, for worse_ mumbled with toothy grins as they stood tall and proud in tuxedo black and white lace. 

They were so young. So idealistic. So naïve. So far from the people they are now. 

With a flick of his wrist, he motions the bartender for another drink. 

"I don't know," Charles murmurs. 

Pauline tilts her head and laughs, makes a show of it. She taps her perfectly manicured fingernails against the edge of the table, a nervous habit she's had for years. He watches carefully, eyes tracing the faint line where her wedding ring once was. 

When he finally looks her in the eye, her mouth turns. 

"You always were a terrible liar."

 

 

 

2

Liza starts out as a fantasy. 

Something to keep him warm during lonely nights, a _what if_ with only the vaguest possibility of becoming true. 

It was inappropriate, probably, but not completely unfathomable. 

And at the time, in the very beginning of things, he never would have acted on it. 

His life, up until that point, was separated into two entities: before Pauline and after Pauline. 

There were other women, of course, but Charles was always too tall, too quiet, too awkward. His family name and the accompanying money make him a catch - he has never been ignorant to this fact. Women liked him, yes, but they could never relate to him simply because he had such a different way about him. His mother once told him he was full of quiet grace in a world where only brute force was revered. There was nothing wrong with that, his mother always assured him. Charles believed her like any good son would, but he always felt _less than._

Pauline changed that. Pauline changed everything for him. 

She loved him, all of him, and when he said _forever_ he honestly and truly meant it. 

The dissolution of their marriage damn near breaks him. Not just the loss of his wife, of his partner, but the cold way in which she went about it. One day she was there and the next day she simply wasn't. No preamble. No discussion. Nothing. Charles simply came home one day to a half-empty closet and a pristine white envelope with his name hastily scrawled on it, like she was in such a rush the note was a mere afterthought. 

There had been other women, of course - shameless attempts to screw his way into forgetting her - but nothing ever stuck, and he never wanted anyone enough to stick around for very long anyway. 

Then Liza happened. 

Even in retrospect, Charles has difficulty discerning the exact evolution of things, of how he and Liza became this complicated, messy, _almost_ thing. 

It is as though one moment it is simply a crush, practically meaningless, and the next day he looks up and she is just there. One day he looks up and there is this intelligent, beautiful woman sitting across from him that challenges him and understanding and snorts softly when she laughs too hard at a joke and suddenly he is _falling, falling, falling._

He regrets it. All of it. 

(Pauline was right - he is a terrible liar.) 

 

 

 

3

The party is a dumb idea. 

Charles knows this. 

Yet, he goes anyway. 

It is every bit the disaster he knew it would be. He sees her, and his chest tightens, the self-righteous anger humming under his skin like a live wire. The mere sight of her does nothing but make him feel betrayed and unhinged. Charles knows it is wrong, knows he should give her a chance to explain, but the anger is easier, familiar, _comfortable_. The anger distracts him from every other emotion he feels where she is involved.

The anger also makes him a bit of an asshole, but Liza takes it in stride. Trades jabs with him tit for tat. Hides underneath innuendo and banter that would reveal itself to be anything but innocent to anyone who cared to look closely enough. 

Halfway through the party he wants to scream at her just to goad her into an honest reaction. 

Instead, he settles for the truth and simply calls her a liar right to her face. 

Charles doesn't know whether to be impressed or disgusted by how easily she deflects, so he simply busies himself with grabbing another drink. 

 

 

 

4

In the elevator, after, he is mostly drunk. 

Charles is leaning against the back wall waiting for the doors to close and when he looks up and she is there. 

They watch each other for a moment and he sighs a little at the way she bites her bottom lip, unsure of what to do. Something stalls and then jumpstarts to life deep in his chest. He does his best to ignore it. 

"I will, uh… I will take the next one," Liza says, taking a step back. 

The shake of his head is curt, pointed. "Why bother? Anything to help you keep up appearances for this little charade." There is a surprising lack of edge to his tone, but the way he angrily reaches forward to push the button to hold the doors open gives him away completely. "In or out?" 

There is a moment of consideration before Liza steps over the threshold. She stands near him, practically next to him, but just out of reach. 

Bemused, she asks, "Is that what you were doing in there? Keeping up appearances?" 

She does that thing where she shifts her weight from left to right, squares her shoulders. She's preparing herself for something - for another argument, another battle. Suddenly his chest aches for an entirely different reason as he is reminded, deftly, that this is who they are to one another now. 

Something bitter rises in the back of his throat. He swallows thickly around it, cannot seem to stop himself when he says, "I called you a liar. Is that not the truth?" 

Her look is sharp. Hurt. And he is almost glad for it. 

"That's not fair -" 

"-don't you dare talk to me about what is fair." 

They are both startled by the depth of anger behind the words, the growl with which they are said. Liza's eyes widen. She takes a step back. Murmurs his name, just once, full of apprehension. 

The kissing just happens. 

One moment they are on the verge of an argument and the next his mouth is on hers, his fingers curling around her face, tangling in her hair, pulling with a need, with an urgency that spills out of him without any sense of control. 

The kiss is all teeth and bite. Angry. Charles expects her to pull away, to set him straight, but is not disappointed when she does neither. When instead she tangles her fists into the fabric of his jacket and pulls him closer to her, both of them stumbling a bit as they move, move, move until her back hits the corner of the elevator. 

Liza kisses him back, hard and bruising, and suddenly she is _everywhere._

One of her hands digs at his neatly tucked shirt, pulls and tugs until it is free, until her fingertips are slipping underneath and meeting bare skin. She moans at the contact, something low and guttural, and he loses his mind a little. Stops thinking. Allows one of his hands to slip from her hair and follow the long line of her until it meets the hem of her dress. He pushes the fabric up, up, up. Ruins it with his fingertips. Moves his hand between her legs. Nearly dies at how wet she is for him already. He is already ten steps ahead, their immediate future spilling messily before them - her legs around his waist, his hiss of a groan as he slides inside of her, as he accommodates to the tight fit, and the way she sighs his name as he starts to move, and - 

Charles has to pull his mouth away from hers just so he can breathe and when he does, when he pulls back and looks at her, _really_ looks at her, everything around them stills. 

Liza murmurs his name again. Reaches up and towards him, thumb delicately tracing the corner of his mouth. 

It feels like everything and nothing all at once. He takes in the soft lines of her mouth, the flush of her cheeks and cannot remember the last time he wanted for something so badly. The anger still bleeds into every crevice of his being and it feels wrong, to be here like this. His throat suddenly goes dry. 

"This is a mistake," he says. He is careful not to look at her then. 

"Yeah," she breathes and sighs at once. Her hand leaves his side and raises to her mouth, wiping all reminders of him away. She looks ready to cry, and he hates himself. "You're probably right." 

Carefully, Liza untangles herself from him. He tries not to miss her warmth immediately. 

 

 

 

5

Pauline officially moves out on a Tuesday. 

They girls do not cry when he and Pauline tell them, as gently as possible, that _no, mommy and daddy are not getting back together._ It is unexpected, their lack of reaction, and for a brief period of time he truly believes he is one of the few, a good parent, that he and Pauline did not, in fact, fuck up their kids. 

The feeling doesn't last long. 

Later, long after Pauline has left, he goes through his routines: sorts through the mail, organizes manuscripts, answers emails, and, after everything else is done, finds himself standing at the girls' door to check on them. It is a ritual that began years before when the girls were so tiny and fragile and he was so worried about something happening to them that he would wake in the middle of the night just to count their breaths, just to prove to himself that they were alive, and breathing, and mostly okay. 

Tonight is no different except instead of silence he is greeted to the sound of soft crying, and Nicole whispering _It's going to be okay_ over and over while Bianca weeps, inconsolable. 

It ruins him. 

There is an old family property on the Vineyard and once upon a time, before trial separations and pending divorces, the girls loved it there. When he proposes the idea to them the next morning over slightly burnt pancakes, he isn't sure if they are excited by the prospect of spending time together or that he is getting them out of school. It doesn't matter either way - Charles will take what he can get. Already, he and Pauline have forced them to mature well beyond their years and soon they will no longer have the time or patience for their father. 

So, he decides to take his time with the drive. Stops every so often along the way to show them places that mean something to him: the town in Rhode Island where his mother was raised; the library at Yale where he first met their mother; the best pizza place in New Haven. In New Hampshire, they take a tour of Chepachet Farms, and the girls almost make themselves sick from all the free Maple Syrup. He has to stop at a rinky-dink diner because Nicole swears she is going to _vomit any second, dad, I am telling you_ , but it is Bianca's hair he holds as she throws up all over his shoes on the side of the highway. 

Inside the diner, he and the girls talk about anything but. His glass of ginger ale is sweating all of his fingers when his phone buzzes from where it sits off to the side, somewhere near the napkin dispenser. There is a flash of red in the corner alerting him to a new text message. Charles reaches for it instinctually. Freezes when he sees Liza's name flash on the screen. 

_Are you okay?_

From across the table, Nicole groans and says something accusingly along the lines of _you promised no phones, Dad._

His phone vibrates and chimes again in his hand. He ignores the urge to look at it, instead choosing to smile an apology towards Nicole and hastily pocketing his phone. 

 

 

 

6

The house is a mammoth built with brick and mortar that sprawls across a piece of land right on the water. The view is worth millions. The land twice that. Years before, when the rescission hit and started accelerated the downfall of print, his financial advisor told him to sell and sell quickly. Charles has always been a bit sentimental, though, and never could. The house has been in his family for nearly a century, every crevice of the property filled with memories. His great grandfather built the frame and laid the bricks himself. The Gazebo where his parents were married still stands on the far east edge of the property, weathered with chipping paint, but mostly intact. Charles summered here as a child. Kissed his first girlfriend under the oak tree in the backyard where the pool once was. Brought the kids for vacations when he and Pauline still looked forward to that sort of thing. 

There is too much history here and Charles has always felt that history should never be forgotten. 

There have limited time together, their impromptu vacation limited to a mere five days, so he has the girls make a list of all the things they want to do. Each morning they make a show out of voting on activities they would like to participate in for the day. There are hikes in the morning, sand-castle building contests in the afternoon, games of Zombie and tag in the early evenings. They spend a lot of time on the boat and he teaches the girls how to fish properly - tying the hook securely to the line, carefully baiting the hook, the art to a perfect cast. 

Bianca turns her nose up at it. Doesn't want to touch the nightcrawlers with her bare hands and is too easily distracted, but Nicole is a natural. Takes her time. The perfect mixture of his patience and her mother's tenacity. 

Charles watches her in awe as she reels in her first catch, removing it carefully from the hook. Bianca makes gagging noises from her spot near the bow. The girls argue back and forth for a few minutes. It is innocent at first and then quickly grows into something much less kind and he jumps in, literally between them, to referee before someone gets their feelings hurt. 

They keep him busy, on his toes, every moment filled with something. 

Charles actively does not think about Liza. 

Until he does, of course. 

 

 

 

7

It surprises him that she picks up on the first ring.

"Hi." 

" _Hi._ " 

"How, uh," Liza pauses, clears her throat. After a beat, she tries again: "How are you?" 

Charles hesitates. Downstairs, the girls are laughing hysterically at some movie he probably should have vetted a little harder. His mouth twists at the sound. He feels lighter, _happy_. It was a really good day. He and the girls hiked in the morning, made lunch together, read by the water. Their days have been lazy and quiet, but they are spending time together, just the three of them, and he cannot remember the last time he did just that - simply lived in the moment without any expectations or time restraints. 

"Alright," he says after a beat. "I'm good, actually. The girls and I… well, we're having a good time." 

" _Oh_. Oh, good. I'm glad. Diana said something about a sabbatical and I was worried, I guess. That's why I texted -" 

"- An exaggeration, I assure you." He laughs softly, picturing the dramatic flair with which Diana announced his absence. She means well, always has, but Charles probably would have been better off dealing with it himself. "Pauline moved out. We are, uh, officially done. The girls needed time and, well, so did I." 

There is silence followed by a stilted sigh. Charles closes his eyes. Pictures her. Opens them immediately. 

"That makes sense," is all she says. 

They are quiet for a moment. Liza takes a breath and holds it. Even over the phone, with all this distance placed between them, he knows her tells. Charles sighs, reaches for the glass of whiskey he poured hours before, already half-gone. Takes a sip, allows it to provide him with some courage, some clarity to figure out what he is doing. Why he called. Why she answered. Why they keep toeing this line that has been drawn and redrawn between them too many times to count. 

He should hate her. 

He _wants_ to hate her because everything would be so much easier if he did. 

The anger begins to rise reflexively in his chest. Tiredly, he rubs at his eyes. Sighs once more. Downstairs the girls are laughing again, and it does much to soften the anger, to warm the very core of him. He decides, suddenly and rather easily, that he doesn't want it to be this way any longer. The exhaustion of trying so damn hard to hate her digs under skin and lingers. It wears him out. 

"Tell me something true about yourself, Liza." 

"Charles, I -" She stops herself. He can hear her frown. Hears her considering. After a moment she begins again: "What is it you want to know?" 

He laughs. 

"Everything," he tells her.

 

 

 

8

There are things she tells him that he already knows. Things that were outlined in nice, bold print in the file Moore passed across the desk with that ugly, smug grin plastered across his face. Charles already knows about the ex-husband. The daughter. The gambling debt. The father in Jersey and the mother who has been gone nearly fifteen years. When he is in the mood to be honest with himself he knows there are reasons he never wanted to hear her out - the main one being that hearing her story, hearing her ask _what wouldn't you do for your girls, Charles?_ makes absolute sense to him. 

In a basic primal and parental way, he understands why the lie was born. 

It is the continuation of it - with him and after they developed into something more than colleagues, something more than friends - that bothered him. 

When they hang up it is nearly two hours later. He meanders downstairs to find Nicole and Bianca fast asleep on the couch, popcorn spilling from the bowl in their laps and onto the floor. He carries them to bed one by one, tucks them in and kisses their foreheads. Makes a foolish wish, like he so often does, for them to stay this small, this innocent. 

Upstairs his phone blinks at him again. 

_Thank you for hearing me out._

He stalls. Contemplates. Writes three different replies before he settles on: _You're welcome._

The three dots appear, then disappear, then appear again. 

The first text: _I miss you._

The second: _I know that is selfish of me to say, but I want you to know._

He considers his response for a long moment. Types out _I miss you too_ but thinks better of it at the last moment. 

There is no response to give that doesn't give himself away, so he simply responds with nothing at all. 

 

 

 

9

For the remainder of the night, Charles feels keyed up and on edge. Restless. Sleep only finds him in short intervals and when it does, when his mind rests long enough to dream, he dreams of her. 

 

 

 

10

In the morning, despite how tired his body feels, he runs. Forces his legs to carry him as fast and as long as possible so eventually his mind slows and goes blank and he is unable to focus on anything besides the need to force air in and out of his lungs as efficiently as possible to keep his pace unaltered. He runs without any direction, without any time constraints, and decides to make his turn around point a spot on the cliffs just so he can take moment to stop and appreciate the view. 

The sun rises, almost as if on cue, bathing early morning in quiet hues of oranges and reds. 

His first thought is of the girls, a reminder to wake them early one morning so they can witness something this beautiful. 

His second is of Liza. 

It is the first time in weeks Charles doesn't try to immediately shove the thoughts away, to bury them in a place clearly labeled _do not venture here._

Instead, he acts on impulse and without any thought and pulls his phone out of his pocket. Takes a photo of the sunrise. Sends her it with a single line of text in lieu of a caption: _My morning view._

Her response is almost instantaneous: _Jealous. This is mine_

The picture is delayed by nearly thirty seconds, but he laughs when he sees it: a crooked view of a man on the subway buried into a corner of a train and urinating into an empty cola bottle. Immediately after another picture comes in, one that is clearly of said man shouting at the person behind the camera. Charles chuckles softly to himself. 

_Got to love New York._

_If you say so._

 

 

 

11

Charles calls her again the next night. 

Together they laugh over the time she was propositioned to pose nude for a calendar in an effort to save her hometown bookstore. 

It is a weird experience for him - listening to her retell certain events that unfolded over the last year. There are experiences, moments they shared together that often left him wondering, maybe even slightly confused. Everything makes so much more sense in retrospect and he starts to think maybe, just maybe, there were sings all along and he simply chose to ignore them. 

Maybe it was easier that way. 

Maybe he loved the idea of Liza so much that he didn't want to clutter the version of her he had built in his mind with the harsh truth of reality. 

Maybe he is partly to blame for this mess as well. 

Maybe none of it should even matter anymore. 

 

 

 

12

Things they talk about: their childhoods; high school; first kisses and first times; growing up in Jersey; Dartmouth; Princeton; Caitlin; Nicole; Bianca; David; Pauline; how Liza loves her father but he doesn't truly understand her, always wanted her to do something more practical with her life; how screwed up she was after her mother died and how she still wakes up most mornings and thinks of her first, wishes to be able to talk to her one more time; how screwed up he was after his father died because he felt like he was never, ever going to measure up; the dissolution of his marriage; the slow death of hers; that time she was arrested for indecent exposure at a Guns and Roses concert; how he actually thinks Tolstoy is a bit overrated _thank you very much_ ; how she almost changed majors because she couldn't stand the thought of spending an entire semester dissecting Chaucer; that _other_ time she was _almost_ arrested for indecent exposure when she and her then boyfriend got drunk on peach schnapps and made out in an alley behind the local Save-A-Lot when she was sixteen; how she threw up in the backseat of said officer's cruiser and he took pity on her and took her home to her parents instead of booking her; how the closest he has ever been arrested is staging a sit in his Junior year to protest censorship of the school newspaper; how hilarious she finds that fact. 

 

 

 

13

Things they don't talk about: 

 

 

 

14

"I didn't mean to fall in love with you," she tells him. 

In the corner, near the door, his suitcases sit neat and tidy. He and the girls leave for the city tomorrow. Something sticks in his throat. He swallows around it, distracts himself by picking at the corner of his thumbnail until it starts to bleed. 

"Me either," he sighs. 

Her laughter spills over the line but there is little humor to it. 

"And yet here we are -" 

"- victims of unsynchronized passion." 

"Only by choice," she reminds him softly. 

The line is quiet for a long time. 

 

 

 

15

The sound of something shifting and finally settling between them can be heard in the distance. 

 

 

 

16

Somewhere in Brooklyn, a man waits for a woman on a stoop outside of her apartment.

Charles stands when he sees her in the distance, watches as her step falters with surprise, second guesses himself for one second, two second until a slow smile starts to twist at the corner of her mouth. 

They stand before each other for a beat too long. Awkwardly. He does what he usually does around her - shoves his hands in his pockets, rocks back on his heels, tries to stop himself from reaching out to her. 

Liza breaks first, unashamedly reaching out to touch her fingers to his chin. 

"I like the beard," she says before letting her hand fall to her side again. 

"Vacation made me lazy," he replies. His mouth spreads into a half-smile. 

She chuckles. "Now that's something I would need to see to believe." 

It is late, already almost dark, and somewhere in the distance a street light flickers on and off. Coming here was a spur of the moment decision. He got back into town that morning with the girls, dropped them off at Pauline's, went home. The house felt too large and the silence too stifling without them there. He found himself working as a distraction, muddling his way through the hundreds of emails in his inbox. Liza's name popped up more than once, and each time he thought about reaching out to her, thought about going to see her. 

So, he did. 

"I would like to buy you dinner." It falls out of his mouth all of a sudden and in a rush, almost as if he is afraid if he doesn't say it now he never well. 

Charles has never been good at declarations or grand gestures. But he is here now. Bridging the distance. _Trying_. It means something. It means _everything._. 

Liza, of course, understands. She tilts her head to the side and smiles at him. 

"I know a great place," she says. 

 

 

 

17

Later, somewhere along Bedford, he does not hesitate when he reaches for her hand.


End file.
